E-Commerce

Tech once again has been an amazingly vibrant market in the last week of August when news is generally slow. A recent trend has to do withtechnology companies playing nice with global governments to make sure they aren't rejected or find themselves out of favor like Google happens to be in China.

Nokia Spices up its Servers

Nokia for its part has decided to put servers in India to comply with local laws allowing government officials access to once impenetrable communications systems. You may recall India recently had some issues with not being able to monitor messages sent on Blackberrys.

Dotcoms are what people recognize most online with .BIZ and others taking a distant back seat. Yet when I heard the .CO domain names were coming I immediately saw how they would be similar enough to .COMs that perhaps they could become the second most-popular domain name suffix.

The new top level domains come courtesy of the country of Columbia who will be one of the beneficiaries of related domain name sales.

Depending on market reaction it is possible that .CO domain names could increase wildly in value like .COMs and further they may even erode the value of a .COM address.

In my opinion services like Satellite radio and personalized services like Pandora and Slacker are what I would consider Radio 2.0 so I read with interest a piece on Seeking Alpha which discusses Satellite Radio 2.0 which will blend the best of a service like Pandora with satellite technology. Patent #20090320075 filed by XM has a number of really consumer-friendly nuggets in it. Specifically it specifies what I have long considered a dream device - it will listen to multiple streams of satellite, HD and other radio and record content into playlists which it believes will be of interest to me based upon my likes and dislikes.

Basically, a merger of Pandora and TiVo on steroids - tapping into the vast archive of content on satellite, WiFi and elsewhere which could include news and sports.

I was a huge fan of SkyFire on Windows Mobile as it approximated the iPhone Safari browser on a Windows Mobile device while also supporting Flash. Now it seems this browser is coming to the iPhone and I wonder if Apple will force the company to disable the Flash support to ensure it abides by the company's rules of not allowing other "programming languages" to run on it.

In the mid-nineties as the CTI market stormed onto the scene a slew of new unified messaging companies came onto the scene looking to sell systems which integrated voicemail into corporate email repositories and later IP-based phone systems. The biggest challenge of the day was the traditional interconnect or telephone system reseller didn't understand data and the data guys didn't get voice.

A new breed of reseller was born and the data and voice VARs who couldn't adapt were at a huge disadvantage which forced many of them to close up shop.

The agent market too is evolving as core products are being sold today through call centers and the Internet and if you are still doing business the way you did a decade ago, you are in deep trouble.

I recently received a TMCnet What's Hot in VoIP newsletter which had a number of stories worth sharing. First off is Comcast who is losing VoIP share to competitors but is still moving forward with plans for WiFi roaming and philanthropy. I have noticed Time Warner WiFi hotspots popping up all around TMC HQ in Norwalk, CT but have yet been able to connect to the service. If I do, I will keep you posted on my impressions.

Many people are very fed up with the idea of changing the rules to save favored institutions - TARP, the bailing out of AIG, Citibank, GM, Chrysler and underwater homeowners at the expense of the companies and people who played by the rules has infuriated millions. The problem with changing the rules of the game is you never know when you should stop. For example, now that everyone else has been bailed out, the states too who have spent beyond their means are being bailed out meaning if you live in a state where you elected fiscally conservative candidates who spent wisely, your tax liabilities still increase because the administration is being forced by bailout momentum to save states which are bankrupt.

And believe me I understand the incompetence of state politicians as Connecticut, my home state is about to face bankruptcy - we have a week's worth of cash.

With this set up, understand why many are concerned when they hear that some suggest that now we need to change the copyright laws to save newspapers.

You go New York Times, there are a few stories the newspaper has run recently which are worthy of note and worth potentially sending to people who don't devour tech news for a living. The first is from this past week - an article which exposes a simple security flaw which could haunt you. Simply, by allowing the camera on your cellphone or GPS enabled-gadget to geotag your photos, information stored in the pics will become available to people savvy enough to decipher your photograph's location.

This is an important point in case if you happen to be very private and sitting at home and decide to photograph something like your cat or a deer running around your backyard.

In May of 2000, Lycos was acquired by Terra Networks, the internet arm of Spanish telecom giant Telefónica for $5.4 billion. Do you remember how this company used to be one of the top sites online? It really was one of the symbols of the dotcom bubble. Although you never hear Lycos mentioned anymore it is interesting to note the company has an Alexa ranking of 1,443 meaning it is in the top 1,443 most popular sites.

It's been a very busy tech morning so I spent some time assembling news you should be aware of before you grab your morning bagel and brew that pot of coffee.

Tablets, Tablets Everywhere

First off is an article from Harry McCracken at Technologizer discussing 32 tablets, slates and pads. Yes Virginia, there are alternatives to the iPad but surprisingly the iPod Touch isn't on the list.